With the completion of the Phonograph
onDecember 6, 1877 the revolution of sound began, culturally
and in rpms.

Thomas Alva Edison and his head machinist,
John Kruesi, had successfully captured the human voice and played
it back on Edison's "Talking Phonograph." (1)

What are Phonographia?

Phonographia are objects and images
and words that contribute to our memory of the Phonograph.

Phonographia are found in art, advertisements,
personal stories and literature, photographs, greeting cards, postcards,
cartoons and many other formats including talking machines and records
from their respective era.

Phonographians
are Friends of the Phonograph who enjoy the Phonograph and
its pop culture connections.

The Phonograph Lives!

The revolution that began with the Phonograph
is a continuum.

We still have record players and descendent
technologies that record and reproduce sound waves.

And most remarkably, launched one hundred
years after the invention of the phonograph, Voyager 1 and 2 are travelling
in interstellar space each carrying a phonograph record that
is Earth's"message
in the bottle" and "greetings from Earth" (2).

Images, sounds and music on the Voyager's
"Golden Record" are intended to represent life on planet
Earth. As Carl Sagan noted, however, the record would only be played
"if there are advanced spacefaring civilizations in interstellar
space") (3).

So perhaps the "Golden Record"
will never be played. But never is a long time and there is the mind-bending
possibility that the Voyager record will exist longer than humans
on Earth.

Go to the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) website, read more about the "Golden
Record" and see real-time numbers of how far these records have
travelled.

The "Golden Record"
attached to the side of Voyager 1

Remember the Phonograph!

Next time you hear recorded sound remember
the Phonograph. It's a Revolution still turning!

Phonographia's Table
of Contents

PHONOGRAPHIA

Trumpeting the
Revolution and the following text from "Black Rock Portraits
on the Playa"